Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Turkey Hill's Super Sundae contest was loads of fun (even though my 5 year old razzes me about her recipe being a finalist and not mine!) and even more fun having Holly being crowned with the winning Super Sundae. She is going to celebrate by sharing her winnings with her kindergarten class and having an ice cream party for them all. I have a feeling she is going to be pretty popular that day. Thanks again Turkey Hill for hosting a fun contest and thank you to all of you who voted and voted and voted for her. We can't wait until our fun ice cream prize pack arrives!

Friday, November 19, 2010

In Holly's eyes (my 5 year old) she is already a winner just having her creation chosen as a finalist for the Turkey Hill Super Sundae contest. The fun part now is voting, voting, voting for her "It's a Party" Sundae #3 and keeping our fingers crossed that it comes out on top. I told her if she wins she can use the supply of ice cream for an ice cream party for her class so she is even more excited to come in first place of course.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Who doesn't long for the ice cream truck to come by on a hot summer day?! Well Tim @ Tim's Ice Cream Truck knows a good thing when he sees it and decided it was his turn to be the ice cream man. Below is an interview about his experiences living his dream.

How did you get your ice cream truck?

My original plan was to buy a used ice cream truck. It was much harder than I expected and the only truck I could find that was in my budget (under 5k) was in New Jersey (a full days drive away) and needed a new freezer (most ice cream trucks use special cold plate freezers that cost thousands of dollars that stay cold the entire day without needing to be plugged in).

In desperation I decided to call around to all the ice cream truck companies in Boston and found one guy who had a few extra trucks. They were out of my price range but I told him my story and what I was trying to do and he said he might be able to help me out.

I ended up leasing the truck from him and paying by the week. The process was still very involved though because I was not a high priority on this guy’s agenda (He owned over a dozen trucks) and it required persistence and over two months of nagging him to finally get the truck lease set up and the vehicle insurance figured out. Many times I felt like giving up; he rarely returned my calls and would often forget to call me back when he said he would.

Sometimes I would call him two or three times a day every day for a week until I finally got through to him. It was actually kind of ridiculous. However one piece of advice to anyone who is thinking of getting into this business, or really any business, is that persistence pays off. The best way to show you are serious and to set yourself apart from everyone else is to be very persistent and never give up, because this shows better than anything else you can say that you will work hard in your business and be a good business partner to work with.

The other thing is you can’t take rejection personally. People in general just have a million things to work on and think about these days and a lot of times they just forget about you. I remember something my mom told me once I finally got the truck, “it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.”

Where do you get your ice cream?
Most of the ice cream I sell is not available in stores and can only be ordered in bulk from a wholesale ice cream distributor. You will notice that some items, like the Good Humor strawberry shortcake bars that you buy at the supermarket, are significantly smaller than the versions that are sold out of ice cream trucks. Ice cream trucks are facing more competition these days from Wallmart and gas stations because companies like Blue Bunny and Klondike are selling items in stores that you used to only be able to get at the ice cream truck, like the Choco Taco.

Tell us something interesting that happened to you while being the ice cream man?
I was parked by the pool one day and a girl wearing a way-too-big Dunkin Donuts shirt and dirty camo pants came walking down the sidewalk with a big army ruck sack on her back. I said hi and we started talking. I was sort of surprised when she told me she grew up in the same town I did because she was dressed so raggedly and our town is pretty wealthy. She had been homeless for the last 3 years and had been living in abandoned buildings all around Massachusetts.

She told me about the homeless community in Harvard Square and the knife she always carried and how most kids on the streets, including her, were addicted to heroin. She told me story after story that I could hardly believe and yet I knew they were true. She wasn’t even twenty years old but it felt like she had already lived through a lifetime of experiences.

We must have talked non-stop for almost an hour and when my throat started to get dry I pulled two cold IBC Root Beers out of my fridge hoping she would stick around a little bit longer. Another half hour went by. My mom, who swims every day, saw my truck parked on the street by the pool and stopped by to check on how things were going. Without a second thought she greeted the girl by name and explained to us that we used to go to preschool together at the church right down the street from where I lived. Small world…

Do kids still scream iiiiice creeeeeeam when they see you coming?

Yes. Sometimes the younger ones would think that I was another ice cream truck and yell the other guy’s name which was a little embarrassing.

Have you been chased down the street to stop? Or how far will someone go to get you to stop?
Unfortunately, the idea of chasing an ice cream truck is largely a thing of the past, at least in the town that I spent most of my time in. I found that a lot of people are so lazy that they aren’t even willing to walk over to the ice cream truck unless it is within a 15 second walk of where they are sitting. The best way I found was to park on people’s path back to their cars so that they didn’t have to go out of their way to buy something. I talked to one guy who used to park in a pool parking lot and when they made him park on the street instead he lost about 30% of his business.

I have talked to other ice cream truck drivers who have told me that some towns don’t even allow you to play the ice cream truck music in the neighborhoods now because there was an accident where a kid who was chasing an ice cream truck was hit by a car while he was running down as street.

What do younger kids vs older kids typically order?
Younger kids like popsicles and the cartoon faces. Older kids go for slushes, chaco tacos, ice cream sandwiches, and cones. Older girls and women will often get a FrozeFruit bar (Coconut and Strawberry were the most popular). Men like the fancy Dove bars but also like the chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches a lot.

Does the ice cream song drive you crazy all day?There were 2 other ice cream trucks in my town and some days I would be just sitting in my truck and I would hear the faint sound of the jingle from across town and I couldn’t be sure if I was really hearing it or if my mind was playing tricks on me. Sometimes I would hear the jingle very faintly as I fell asleep, knowing all along that there was no way one of the trucks was still out at 1 AM.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

So you've seen what Mom (aka me) came up with for the Turkey Hill Super Sundae Contest now here is what my creative daughter, age 5, built all by herself. I told her her mission was to make up a sundae with what we have in our cupboards. Her entry is titled "It's a Party"!

It's a Party

A raft of Marshmallows coated with Hot Fudge and Caramel sauce topped with Turkey Hill Party Cake Ice Cream and finished off with Whipped Cream and colored sprinkles and nonpareils.

Well her thoughts on why it is truly a party is because two friends can share it, it has Party Cake ice cream, it is loaded with full size marshmallows, it has fun colors and is coated with her all time favorite of sprinkles and nonpareils. Nothing we ever make or bake lacks sprinkles. I seriously should buy stock in them. I give her props for a fun looking sundae. Yes, I helped out a bit with the food styling but she loaded all the ingredients all by herself..mostly ;) I had to take away the chocolate sauce at one point or it would have been called It's a Party Boat floating away in sauce! The funny thing is she stacks the bottom with full size marshmallows (who would even eat those I know!) then she puts the sauces on top of them instead of the ice cream. So unless you stuff yourself with marshmallows you may not appreciate the yummy toppings. Regardless she had fun and it looks fantastic and that was the point.

So once again...let's keep our fingers crossed that one of our entries is a finalist and we will be sure to let you know if you have the chance to vote for one of our fun sundaes.

Last day is today to enter...I probably shouldn't encourage you since it lowers my chances but I am always excited to see other creative entries too so feel free!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Here's the gist of the contest...make up a recipe using Turkey Hill Ice Cream for a sundae, name it and take a fabulous photo of it. Not so tough so I thought I'd give it a shot. This is my entry titled "Oh Snap"!

Once all entries are in they will choose four of their favorite entries as semi-finalists and will post them in November (contect ends the 14th) and then its up to you to vote and the sundae with the most votes wins. Keep your fingers crossed that you get the chance to vote for my Oh Snap concoction. I have to say for myself...it was quite good!

Stay tuned for Entry #2 made with love by the other ice cream lover in my house

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Yippee for Pumpkin Ice Cream....omg I am in love with all things Pumpkin. I am not sure if tis a New England thing but October and November hits and if it comes in a Pumpkin flavor I am all over it so when Erin at OrganicWorks asked about us checking out Whole Food'snew seasonal ice cream flavors I was so hoping one was my all time fave, Pumpkin....yum! And guess what, it was! (the other was Peppermint which we'll be breaking into once holiday time hits!)

First things first. Since I am an art director by day I have to make note of the fabulous packaging of this ice cream. I absolutely love the colors, the simplicity of the typography and the graphic pattern. What's not to love and I haven't even opened it up.

On to the ice cream. I can't really say I am a Pumpkin expert but I tell you I have had four different kinds of Pumpkin ice cream this season so I have something to compare them all to. So my first reaction is wow what incredible flavor. This one has the strongest pumpkin flavor out of all of them followed up by the subtleness of ginger, cinnamon and cloves. Not too much spice and plenty of pumpkin whereas some sometimes have more spice than Pumpkin. If you look closely at my photo you can see flecks of pumpkin and spices. On texture, its not the creamiest of all the ones I tried but it is very smooth and absolutely nothing to complain about.

Oh and the bonus is is that this ice cream which is Whole Food's 365 Everyday Value line of products has no gluten products, is vegetarian and is made from milk from cows not treated with rBGH. So its not only just good..its good for all. Actually calorie wise its not too bad either. For a half a cup it's 140 calories and 6 grams of fat somewhat comparable to light or slow churned ice creams.

All in all this one is a keeper. Bummer is that Whole Foods isn't so easy for me to go to but how much can I eat in one season so its probably a good thing. But I do have to say come Thanksgiving I will be one sad girl to see all the Pumpkin craziness go away so I will be savoring this one til the end.